Submitted photo: 2016 Gadsden City High School graduate Laura Minton Garton was recently named a National P.E.O. Scholar.
Laura Minton Garton, a 2016 graduate of Gadsden City High School, has been named a National P.E.O. Scholar as a result of her “top ranking” at UAB Heersink School of Medicine and her global impact through the founding of WIRED.
In May 2023, rising MS4 student Garton received travel scholarships from the Alabama Academy of Radiology and the UAB Caduceus Club for an advocacy trip to Capitol Hill. Garton spent one week in Washington D.C. attending the 100th annual American College of Radiology (ACR) meeting and speaking with U.S. Senators and Representatives about patient-centered radiology care.
According to Garton, co-founder and president of Women in Radiology Education (WIRED) and president of the Radiology Interest Group, she felt honored for the opportunity to attend ACR’s milestone 100th meeting.
“I founded WIRED at UAB when I realized that I wanted to honor and elevate the women in radiology in the midst of the gender gap in radiology,” Garton said.
When she began medical school in 2020, Garton learned that only one out of every four radiologists are women, despite medical school graduation rates being nearly equivalent between men and women. To help close this gap, she and WIRED co-founder Cathy Chen, M.D., have used their interest group to mentor women, introducing them to radiology earlier in their medical careers.
Thanks to Garton and Chen, WIRED has now been facilitated at medical schools in multiple U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Algeria, Ecuador and India.
Garton has also just completed her 13th publication in scientific journals. Her latest in 2022 is The Future of Magnetic Resonance Contrast Agents (Applied Radiology) and she has recently co-authored a textbook chapter publication named “KatG structure and mechanism: Using protein-based oxidation to confront the threats of reactive oxygen” in Bridging Structure and Function in Mechanistic Enzymology.
Garton, who worked towards being a medical doctor since her elementary days at Eura Brown Elementary School, plans to be a diagnostic radiologist specializing in breast cancer clinical analysis and research. Garton is the daughter of Dr. Maury and Amy Minton, of Hometown Primary Care of Gadsden, and sister of David Minton.